Isakson To Vote Against Kagan

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., today made the following statement regarding his intention to vote against the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court:

“I have personally interviewed Ms. Kagan, and I have carefully followed the Judiciary Committee hearings as well as her testimony. After thorough consideration, I have determined that I will not vote for her confirmation.

“I voted against Ms. Kagan’s confirmation as Solicitor General of the United States in 2009 because of her support of a ban on military recruiters at Harvard University. Her lack of appellate trial experience also concerned me greatly.

“I believe a qualified judge is one who understands the value and the strength and the power of the Constitution of the United States of America, who will rule based on the law, and who will not legislate through activist judicial decisions. I do not believe Ms. Kagan’s record has met this standard.”

I have to admit that Johnny’s voting has improved since he’s been in the Minority party… However, I’ll never forgive him for voting for the bailouts… it went against everything the “free enterprise,” capitalism and Liberty stands for… Even Paulson the then Secretary of the Treasurer admitted, it was Socialism, plain and simple, which curiously is the system Kagan believes in most.

I guess Isakson was for Socialism before he was against it…. Or against the Constitution before he was for it… or, which is what I believe, he is for BIG GOV when it benefits him and his buds, but not when it doesn’t and therefore not grounded in principles of liberty but cronyism.

Isakson’s perception of the Constitution is flawed. The document is addressed to the obligations and duties of our agents of government. It doesn’t address the behavior of ordinary individuals. The Constitution does not rule the people who govern; it defines what the agents of the people may and must do.
That’s why the Amendments are an after-thought and, IMHO, an unnecessary one at that. Because if our agents of government restricted themselves to the duties and obligations they are assigned, there would be no opportunity for them to violate the human rights of the persons within the jurisdiction of the United States.
The law for our public corporations is different than it is for individuals. Our public corporation are permitted to perform certain limited actions. Individual persons are prohibited from performing certain acts (called crimes) and, if they perform them anyway, individuals are subject to being punished by being deprived of their rights. The deprivation of rights is supposed to occur AFTER a lawful determination of a crime. Deprivation is not supposed to be visited on natural persons just minding their business.
Conservatives, however, are convinced that the natural person is inherently evil and must earn social support by being subservient to the directives of their “betters.”
Did Isakson quiz Kagan about Hamdan v. Rumsfeld? Not likely. That’s a recent SCOTUS ruling which affirms that the Constitution aims to limit our agents, not the liberties of the people. Unfortunately, there are few penalties. Firing rogue agents doesn’t affect the behavior of those left behind.

Hannah,
After much deliberation, it seems to me that you may be one who does not exactly understand the purpose of the Constitution. Government OF, by, and for the people means just that. Our elected representatives in the bi-cameral system are not thought of as “agents of the people.” They, ideally, are truly representative of the sentiments of the “majority” of voters, as in your neighbors and other liberty-leaning citizens who appreciate the real benefits of a ground-up decision making process. Every decision may not be as sucessful in practice as in theory, but over the millenium, the populace remains stable with their God-granted freedoms of LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PURSUIT of HAPPINESS. To me, this is the victory of idealism over pragmatism.

Thanks Doug, but I will not hold my breath waiting for an invitation. The primary concerns on my mind are defeating Democrats at the ballot box, and electing Karen Handel as Governor of Georgia. The futures of our children and grandchildren are in the balance. The time for frivolous speculation has passed.